Expert Resource Directory

recognized as a thought leader, organizer, and advocate for transformation of food and farming systems. He has been leading Roots of Change since 2006. He began his agriculture and food career as a marketing executive in Europe for a California-based agribusiness company. In 1992, he founded Sunflower Strategies (later called Ag Innovations Network), where he began his work on community consensus building and strategic planning for healthier food and agriculture. He pioneered regional and environmental branding programs in Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake, and Humboldt counties, and Western Australia. Michael sat on the board of Community Alliance with Family Farmers and served as its chairman in 1994 and 1995. In 1996, he founded Slow Food Russian River, which is among the nation’s most active and influential chapters, doing pioneering work on heirloom and heritage breed protection, grass-fed beef promotion, community support for school gardens, and local food systems development. In 2000, he became the first California Governor of Slow Food USA. In 2001, Michael graduated from the California Ag Leadership program, Class XXXI, the nation’s most respected leadership development programs in the field. From 2002 to 2007, he was Chairman of Slow Food USA and a member of Slow Food International’s board of directors where he worked with Carlo Petrini, Slow Food’s founder, on international strategy. Michael’s love for food systems grew from his experience on an 11,000-acre cattle ranch in Santa Clara County in the late 1960s and a development project with Himalayan subsistence farmers in Nepal in the late 70s. He was a political advanceman for California Governor Jerry Brown in his bid to become a US Senator in 1982. He worked in US-Soviet cultural and professional exchange programs, which led him into television and film production. He holds a BA in History from UCLA, with an honors thesis on the origins of the CIA. He has a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University.

social entrepreneur with seventeen years experience in media production and distribution. Parent Earth, a company in development, will answer parents’ questions about food and help them to create a food system that supports healthy thriving children. Betancourt co-founded, produced, and did video design for LightBox’s Food Theater Project, which includes the play “Milk-n-Honey”, the After Show Cafe and a youth workshop program. She was the Producer, Director and Videographer for "Before You Go" (HBO documentary that won an Emmy and a Golden Spire at the San Francisco International Film Festival), Partes de Agua (a multi-media performance piece in Oaxaca, Mexico), and "Changing Course" (advocacy video about Latin American farmers for World Neighbors). Her other producing and videographer credits include "90 Miles" (POV/PBS), which won Best Documentary at both the New York Latino International Film Festival and the Festival de Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano in Cuba. Betancourt was the Creative Director and then Executive Director of MediaRights, a nonprofit organization dedicated to media for social change, where she launched its online community and built up the award-winning Media That Matters Film Festival. She was a Donnella Meadows Fellow and she serves on various councils and boards. Her work has been praised in the New York Times, USA Today, and Variety, by the Oprah Winfrey Show and at film festivals from Minsk to Taipei. She currently lives in New York City with her husband and two young daughters. She was a member of the 2009-2010 class of Food and Society Fellows.

Times bestseller Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food and a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Book Review, and Opinion Page.  He has also written for National Geographic Magazine, GQ, The Times (of London), Vogue, and many other publications. In the last five years he has been both a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow and a W. K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellow. A guest and commentator on public radio programs including Fresh Air and All Things Considered, Mr. Greenberg is also a fiction writer. His 2002 novel, Leaving Katya, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Greenberg also lectures widely on issues of ocean sustainability at venues that range from Google to the United States Supreme Court to The Culinary Institute of America. He has lectured and reported extensively overseas with assignments in Russia, Ukraine, France, the Caucasus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, the West Bank/Gaza, and many other locations around the world.

Oxford University, the London School of Economics and Cornell University, has been a visiting scholar at Yale, and is now both a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for African Studies, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Durban, South Africa. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, and the New York Times and international bestseller, The Value of Nothing. He has also co-authored Food Rebellions with Eric Holt-Gimenez and Annie Shattuck, and co-edited Promised Land, with Peter Rosset and Michael Courville. His work on sustainability, food, and economics has been translated into over a dozen languages. He has also published widely in the academic press, with articles in peer-reviewed philosophy, politics, sociology and economics journals. He works in support of a range of social movements, including the international peasant movement La Via Campesina, and the Abahlali baseMjondolo Shackdweller Movement South Africa. As a Fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy, he has testified in front of US Congress on the origins of the 2008 food crisis, and continues to advise the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. He has lectured on subjects ranging from agriculture, climate change, and social movements to slums and fast food to governments, universities, unions, progressive groups and the media in the US, Canada, the UK, Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, India, Thailand, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. He has appeared on CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC, NPR, PBS, DemocracyNow!, and has written for the Guardian, Mail on Sunday, Observer, The Nation, Atlantic Monthly Food Channel, NYTimes.com, San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times, among others. He is a member of the 2011-2013 class of IATF Food and Community Fellows.

local and slowest foods of all: the ones we grow and prepare ourselves. He is Founding Director of Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI), a nonprofit network of 4,900 gardeners from 90 countries who are taking a hands-on approach to local foods systems development. Roger also works to promote vibrant local, state and regional food systems through his work with the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG) and the Eat Local Foods Coalition of Maine (ELFC). In addition to his advocacy and organizing work, Roger is a freelance writer and public speaker specializing in gardening and sustainable cuisine. His articles on food, agriculture and gardening have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Organic Gardening magazine, and Saveur. He is a contributing editor for Mother Earth News. Although grounded in his own local food system, Roger remains interested in and connected to international food issues. Roger first became involved in food issues in Europe as head of Friends of the Earth's European office in Brussels during the 1990s at the height of the Europe's mad cow madness. He was also part of the American NGO delegation to the last UN World Food Summit. He enjoys cooking, gardening and eating with his three Belgo-American boys Francois, Maxim and Sebastian, and his wife Jacqueline. He was a member of the 2008-2009 class of Food and Community Fellows.

waves in both the film industry as well as environmental awareness. As the creative director of her own production company, 7th Empire Media, Shalini creates imaginative films inspired by true stories to engage new audiences in the most vital issues of our time. Working with a variety of social movements, she uses the distribution of her films to advocate effectively for real social change. Her most mainstream appearance was in the Fox television series created by Steven Spielberg, "On the Lot," to find Hollywood's next great director. Shalini finished in the top 10 out of over 12,000 filmmakers and received critical acclaim from industry legends. Shalini received the honor of a William D. Fulbright Fellowship to create a documentary about how street theater has impacted social issues in India. Her recent film, "A Drop of Life," brought the mounting global water crisis into a dynamic futuristic film that continues to garner awards and inspire communities to take action on water rights. She was a member of the 2009-2010 class of Food and Society Policy Fellows.

not to enjoy herself. Since her first article was published in 2001, Chang has written about growing, cooking, and eating food for a variety of national outlets, including the Boston Globe, the Associated Press, and a few major magazines. She is the Boston Globe's regular cookbook reviewer and a frequent contributor to NPR's Kitchen Window series. She was a member of the 2004-2006 class of Food and Society Policy Fellows.

growing up in Boston, he happened to get a summer job at a non-profit organization that teaches youth about agriculture, and that job changed his life. He has spent the last 14 years working the land and creating programs and job opportunities for inner city youth. He leads workshops around the country about the value of youth participation in food systems and land conservation. In 2005, Wilbur became the youngest person to receive a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Fellowship. Wil currently runs the City Harvest Youth Corps and the Charles River Valley Youth Corps for The Trustees of Reservations, supervising 12 youth and providing valuable hands-on work experience and critical leadership skills. He was a member of the 2004-2006 class of Food and Society Policy Fellows.

farm. Her work in sustainable agriculture has engaged her with numerous non-profits over the years, including Ecotrust, the Agriculture and Land-based Training Association (ALBA), the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA), and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. She is a regular contributor to Edible Portland and her work has also appeared in USA Today, Oregon Coast Magazine, The Oregonian, the Draft Horse Journal, In Good Tilth, and Stanford Magazine. She also spent three years co-managing Sauvie Island Organics, a diversified fresh market farm where she oversaw production and apprentice training for a community supported agriculture program. Zoe did her undergraduate work at Stanford University where she studied ecological anthropology with a focus on sustainable agriculture. She recently completed her Masters degree with a focus on rural development, food systems and community change. She was a member of the 2008-2009 class of Food and Society Fellows.